From beloved spiritual writer and Catholic leader Gregory Floyd comes a moving meditation on the power of memory and how God is often more clearly seen when we look back. This is a book about memory, about what stays in the mind, and why. It is a book about the presence of God in our lives and the sights, sounds, words, and experiences that become unforgettable. Beginning with a single word he heard in the middle of the night-one that changed his life-this powerful memoir by Gregory Floyd asks the question: without memory, who are we? It is a meditation on beauty, marriage, family, and prayer, asking of the memories that each implants: what do they reveal? Where do they lead? -and witnessing to their potential to draw us to God.

A gripping historical biography, which will appeal to believer and non-believer alike

Stanley Baxter delighted over 20 million viewers at a time with his television specials. His pantos became legendary. His divas and dames were so good they were beyond description. Baxter was a most brilliant cowboy Coward, a smouldering Dietrich. He found immense laughs as Formby and Liberace. And his sex-starved Tarzan swung in a way Hollywood could never have imagined. But who is the real Stanley Baxter? The comedy actor's talents are matched only by his past reluctance to colour in the detail of his own character. Now, the man behind the mischievous grin, the twinkling eyes and the once- Brylcreemed coiffure is revealed. In a tale of triumphs and tragedies, of giant laughs and great falls from grace, we discover that while the enigmatic entertainer could play host to hundreds of different voices, the role he found most difficult to play was that of Stanley Baxter.

'A sickly child not expected to survive, a chubby teenager and a binge-eating bride? The unlikely beginnings of a health and fitness legend.' Daily Express 'A story of glamour, success and achievement, mixed with vulnerability, near-despair and searing honesty.' Rob Parsons OBE The doctor's voice is sad but firm: 'I'm very sorry, but I have to tell you that your little girl is unlikely to reach her 10th birthday.' Years later, having defied the odds and become a teenager, the same girl discovers a medical report that tells her, to her horror, she is overweight. That was the moment the young Rosemary Conley decided to change her life. After leaving school at 15, training as a secretary and working as a Tupperware dealer, Rosemary started her own slimming classes in 1972 with an investment of just GBP8. In 1983 she published the first of 36 books that were to sell in their millions around the world, alongside millions more of her fitness videos, while also starring in her own TV shows on BBC and ITV. She became, in short, one of the most popular and successful diet and fitness experts the world has seen. But Rosemary's life was not to be one of unbounded achievement and success. As well as the good times there were dark and distressing times, and here she tells of the sorrows and setbacks that were to come - as well as the joy she found, and still finds, in helping people live longer, healthier and happier lives.

A powerful, candid, and richly detailed memoir from an American icon, revealing what life looks like after the presidency: triumphs, tribulations, and all.

On January 20, 2001, after nearly thirty years in politics—eight of them as president of the United States—Bill Clinton was suddenly a private citizen. Only fifty-four years old, full of energy and ideas, he wanted to make meaningful use of his skills, his relationships with world leaders, and all he’d learned in a lifetime of politics, but how? Just days after leaving the White House, the call came to aid victims of a devastating earthquake in India, and Clinton hit the ground running. Over the next two decades, he would create an enduring legacy of public service and advocacy work, from Indonesia to Louisiana, Northern Ireland to South Africa, and in the process reimagine philanthropy and redefine the impact a former president could have on the world.

Citizen is Clinton’s front-row, first-person chronicle of his postpresidential years and the most significant events of the twenty-first century, including 9/11 and the runup to the Iraq War, the Haiti earthquake, the Great Recession, the January 6 insurrection, and the enduring culture wars of our times. With clarity and compassion, he also weighs in on the unprecedented challenges brought on by a global pandemic, ongoing income inequality, a steadily warming planet, and authoritarian forces dedicated to weakening democracy. Yet Citizen is more than a political memoir. These pages capture Clinton in a rare and unforgettable light: not only as a celebrated former president and a foundation leader, but as a father, grandfather, and husband. He recounts his support for Hillary Clinton during her time as senator, secretary of state, and presidential candidate, and shares the frustration and pain of the 2016 election.

In this landmark publication, the highly anticipated follow-up to the best-selling My Life, Clinton pens an illuminating account of American democracy on a global stage, offering a frank reflection on the past and, with it, a fearless embrace of our future. Citizen is a self-portrait of equal parts eloquence, insight, and candor, a testament to one man’s unwavering commitment to family and nation.

It was one of the images of the twentieth century: two boys, walking behind the coffin of their mother, Princess Diana. Billions wondered what the princes must be feeling - and how their lives would play out from that point on.

For Harry, this is that story at last.

Before then, Prince Harry was known as the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. But grief changed everything.

At twenty-one, he joined the Army but was soon more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find true love.

Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's romance and wedding. But in the face of sustained press intrusion, Harry saw no other way to protect his wife and children than to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try had been his mother. . .

Written with raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is full of insight, revelation and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

A coming-of-age travel memoir that probes thorny spiritual questions while taking the reader on a wild ride from the deep American South to the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East. Once the golden girl of her Arkansas town, Natalie finds herself squeezed under small town shame and rejection after being kicked out of church for getting a divorce. It's a hard fall off of a sanctimonious high horse, and religious fundamentalism has left her feeling broken and stuck. But she can't shake the 'wanderlust woes' that have plagued her since childhood, so she runs away to the Middle East. As a mostly-sheltered Southerner, she struggles to adapt but is determined to be 'at home' in the world. Her journey is more than a pilgrimage, it's a peregrination: a one-way ticket to elsewhere in search of the place of her own resurrection. Within these pages is a suspenseful adventure filled with love, loss, laughter, tears, and a little bit of scandalous behavior, but at the heart of it, Natalie walks squarely into the unknown to confront the secret matters of the soul that we wrestle with at night.

“I saw my mommy walking to the court with a hoodie on and a scarf covering her face. She looked almost like someone that was poor. People were cursing at her… and that broke me. This is the woman who was there for me every day, making lunch for me and my friends when we came from school, and now here she is on television being called a criminal.”

The kidnapping of baby Zephany Nurse from the cot beside her mother’s hospital bed made headline news. Desperate pleas from her parents to return her safely went unanswered. There was no trace of the baby. For 17 years, on her birthday, the Nurse family lit candles and hoped and prayed.

Living not far away from the Nurses, 17-year-old Miché Solomon had just started Matric. She had a boyfriend. She had devoted parents. She was thinking about the upcoming school dance and the dress her mother was going to make for her. She had no idea that a new girl at her school, who bore an uncanny resemblance to her, and a DNA test would shake her world to its foundations.

Miché is now 22. This is her story – for the first time in her own words. Told with astonishing maturity, honesty and compassion, it is also a story of what it means to love and be loved, and of claiming your identity.

Leonard Cohen has aimed high: to be all Jewish heroes at once. Like Jacob, he struggled with angels. Like David, he sang psalms and seduced women. But he never ceased doing what he did best: going from city to city and reviving our hearts. Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall follows the singer’s cosmopolitan life from Montreal and New York to the Greek island of Hydra and examines his perpetual dialogues with himself, God, and avalanches.

We see how six decades of radiant pessimism and a few thousand nights in hotel rooms transformed a young Jewish poet who longed to be a saint into an existentialist troubadour in love with women and a gravelly-voiced crooner who taught a thousand ways of dissolving into love.

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art. Gracefully blending biography and essay, he interrogates the mission Cohen set out for himself: to show us that darkness is just the flip side of light.

In die verlede, was ek baie keer onseker oor myself, veral as ek in 'n moeilike situasie beland het of 'n krisis moes hanteer. Noudat ek vierkantig daarmee gekonfronteer word, is dit vir my lekker om te weet ek het nie moed opgegee nie. Mathys Roets het sy musiekloopbaan in 1989 begin toe hy met sy kitaar in die hand, in 'n winkelsentrum in Pretoria, vir fooitjies gesing het. In 1996 maak hy 'n belangrike deurbraak met sy debuutproduksie op die KKNK. In hierdie vertoning, Nokturne, sing hy die musiek van Koos du Plessis. Met sy donker fluweelstem het die musiek van Koos du Plessis, Mathys soos 'n handskoen gepas. Deur sy loopbaan het Mathys bekendheid verwerf vir sy sielvolle vertolkings van die wereld se mooiste ballades, veral die musiek van Leonard Cohen, Roger Whittaker en Neil Diamond. Die pad wat hy gestap het was nie maklik nie. Hy het harde bene gekou, self luidsprekers rondgedra en van restaurant na restaurant gegaan om daar te sing, maar toe hy uiteindelik raakgesien word, het dinge behoorlik vir hom vlam gevat. Op 6 April 2009, op pad na die KKNK in Oudtshoorn, ry Mathys met sy geel BMW motorfiets van die pad af. Vir dae lank hang sy lewe aan ? draadjie en uiteindelik reik die Rosepark Hospitaal ? verklaring uit: Mathys is verlam. Ten spyte van hierdie terugslag, besluit Mathys om vorentoe te kyk en steeds voluit te leef. Steeds Mathys is die inspirerende lewensverhaal van Mathys Roets, soos vertel aan Alita Vorster. Dis 'n verhaal wat lesers sal laat glimlag, maar ook aangryp en besiel. Na die lees van hierdie boek moet 'n mens wonder hoe jy enige uitdaging as te groot kan beskou!

Simon Loftus presents us with a heady blend of family memoir with a history of Ireland, foregrounding the story of the Protestant Ascendancy families. What emerges, however, is also a meditation on the nature of memory, as the tall tales, legends and ghost stories combine to form a narrative of shifting moods and viewpoints.

Jan Christiaan Smuts was world famous as a soldier, statesman and intellectual, one of South Africa’s greatest leaders. Yet little is said or written about him today, even though we appear to live in a leadership vacuum.

Unafraid of Greatness is a re-examination of the life and thoughts of Smuts. It is intended to remind a contemporary readership of the remarkable achievements of this impressive soldier-statesman. Richard Steyn argues that Smuts’s role in the creation of modern South Africa should never be forgotten, not least because of his lifetime of devoted service to this country. The book draws a parallel between Smuts and President Thabo Mbeki, both architects of a new South Africa, much lionised abroad yet often distrusted at home.

This highly readable account of Smuts’s eventful life blends fact, anecdote and opinion in an examination of his complex character – his relationships with women, spiritual and intellectual life, and role as adviser to world leaders. Politics and international affairs lie at the heart of this book, but Smuts’s unique contributions in a variety of other fields, including botany, conservation and philosophy, also receive attention.

Unafraid of Greatness does not shy away from the contradictions of its subject. While Smuts was one of the architects of the United Nations and a great champion of human rights, he could not come to terms with the need to include the African majority in the politics of his own country

Marion is proverbially the great master of strategy?the wily fox of the swamps?never to be caught, never to be followed, ?yet always at hand, with unconjectured promptness, at the moment when he is least feared and is least to be expected. South Carolina's ?Swamp Fox, ? Francis Marion, is one of the most celebrated figures of the American Revolution. Marion's cunning exploits in the Southern theater of the Revolution earned him national renown and a place in history as an American hero and master of modern guerilla warfare. Although dozens of works have been written about Marion's life over the years, this biography -- written by William Gilmore Simms, South Carolina's greatest author -- remains the best. First published in 1844, The Life of Francis Marion was Simms's most commercially successful work of nonfiction. It offers a treatment of Marion's life that is unparalleled in its scope and accuracy, all in Simms's inimitable style.

From her childhood in Whitby to her long old age in Cambridge, the life of Margaret Storm Jameson (1891-1986), novelist, autobiographer, and political activist, spanned almost the whole of the twentieth century. A self-styled Little Englander by nature, and European by nurture, equally at home, or out of place, in the North Yorkshire moors and seascape of her birth, metropolitan London, rural France, and the capitals of Central Europe, she wrote of country, cities and the exile from both with equal knowledge and sympathy. Out of the changing landscapes of her present, she fashioned her vision of the future. The title of her autobiography, Journey from the North, is a simultaneous evocation and erasure of nostalgia for lost commonality, and in her long life as writer and activist, President of wartime PEN (the association of Poets, Essayist, Novelists) committed to the values of freedom and social justice, she fought to reconcile the conflicting forms of emergent modernity. Her own journey is the generic experience of twentieth-century Britain, and the England she urges on her contemporaries is one that shares the life and mind of Europe. The present book traces the history of that shared experience. It recovers, through her writing, the aspirations and the disappointments of the generation of socialists that was Class 1914. The soldiers returning from the front in 1918, to unemployment and the General Strike of 1926, fight in 1940 alongside Frenchmen, and against Germans, who are victims of the same system: class conflict, nationalist rivalries, imperialist ambition, all for Jameson have the same defining economic horizon. At the end of the odyssey the stark alternatives take shape: Washington or Moscow, the madness of American capitalism, or the oppression of Stalinist Communism.
Alongside the narrative of Jameson's life, and the experiences as daughter, wife, and mother that shaped her personality and her career, the book explores her concern with issues of culture and society, cultural memory, and cultural landscapes, her fascination with aesthetic form and the relation of writing to politics, her insight into the materiality of words, and her persistent probing of the nature of the writing subject. It draws on unpublished archive material and brings new research on neglected areas of cultural history into conjunction with literary-critical analyses of Jameson's novels and studies of her journalism and essays. There is an extensive Bibliography of her work.

Following his explosive international bestseller Red Notice, Bill Browder returns with another gripping thriller chronicling how he became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy by exposing Putin’s campaign to steal and launder hundreds of billions of dollars and kill anyone who stands in his way.

When Bill Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder made it his life’s mission to go after his killers and make sure they faced justice. The first step of that mission was to uncover who was behind the $230 million tax refund scheme that Magnitsky was killed over. As Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, they were shocked to discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime.

As law enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set up honey traps, hired process servers to chase Browder through cities, murdered more of his Russian allies, and enlisted some of the top lawyers and politicians in America to bring him down. Putin will stop at nothing to protect his money. As Freezing Order reveals, it was Browder’s campaign to expose Putin’s corruption that prompted Russia’s intervention in the 2016 US presidential election.

At once a financial caper, an international adventure and a passionate plea for justice, Freezing Order is a timely and stirring morality tale about how one man can take on one of the most ruthless villains in the world.

In 1982, at the age of just twenty-three and halfway through her architecture studies, Elspeth Beard left her family and friends in London and set off on a 35,000-mile solo adventure around the world on her 1974 BMW R60/6. Reeling from a recent breakup and with only limited savings from her pub job, a tent, a few clothes and some tools, all packed on the back of her bike, she was determined to prove herself. She had ridden bikes since her teens and was well travelled. But nothing could prepare her for what lay ahead. When she returned to London nearly two and a half years later she was stones lighter and decades wiser. She'd ridden through unforgiving landscapes and countries ravaged by war, witnessed civil uprisings that forced her to fake documents, and fended off sexual attacks, biker gangs and corrupt police convinced she was trafficking drugs. She'd survived life-threatening illnesses, personal loss and brutal accidents that had left permanent scars and a black hole in her memory. And she'd fallen in love with two very different men. In an age before email, the internet, mobile phones, satnavs and, in some parts of the world, readily available and reliable maps, Elspeth achieved something that would still seem remarkable today. Told with honesty and wit, this is the extraordinary and moving story of a unique and life-changing adventure.